Annal: 2009 Barry Award for Best Novel

Following an earthquake,the water level of an Icelandic lake suddenly falls, revealing a skeleton that is weighed down by a heavy radio device bearing inscriptions in Russian. Inspectors Erlendur, Elinborg, and Sigurdur Oli’s investigation takes them back to the Cold War era, when bright, left-wing students in Iceland were sent to study in the “heavenly state” of Communist East Germany.

But one of the students went missing, and her friends suspected that her “heavenly state” was all too real. Erlendur follows a long cold trail that leads back to Iceland, international espionage, and murder.

Another astonishing thriller from one of crime fiction’s brightest stars, The Draining Lake is Arnaldur Indridason’s most gripping book yet.

Welcome to Three Pines, where the cruelest month is about to deliver on its threat.

It’s spring in the tiny, forgotten village; buds are on the trees and the first flowers are struggling through the newly thawed earth. But not everything is meant to return to life…

When some villagers decide to celebrate Easter with a séance at the Old Hadley House, they are hoping to rid the town of its evil—until one of their party dies of fright. Was this a natural death, or was the victim somehow helped along?

Brilliant, compassionate Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec is called to investigate, in a case that will force him to face his own ghosts as well as those of a seemingly idyllic town. Are the residents of Three Pines hiding something great and sinister about their past? Or is April about to deliver on its fateful threat?

As cool as its California surfer heroes, Don Winslow delivers a high velocity, darkly comic, and totally righteous crime novel.

Every morning Boone Daniels catches waves with the other members of The Dawn Patrol: four men and one woman as single-minded about surfing as he is. Or nearly. They have “real j-o-b-s”; Boone, however, works as a PI just enough to keep himself afloat. But Boone’s most recent gig-investigating an insurance scam—has unexpectedly led him to a ghost from his past. And while he may have to miss the biggest swell of his surfing career, this job is about to give him a wilder ride than anything he’s ever encountered. Filled with killer waves and a coast line to break your heart, The Dawn Patrol will leave you gasping for air.

In this first stand-alone novel from the critically acclaimed Edgar Award-finalist, Michael Koryta fulfills his early promise with a dark and mature novel of a young man trying to escape his past.

It has been seven years since Frank Temple III joined the rest of the world in learning his father’s bloody secret: The U.S. marshal maintained a covert career as a contract killer, a double-life that ended in suicide to avoid prosecution and prison.

The shocking revelation triggered years of anonymous drifting for Frank, time spent running from his legacy and struggling to believe that the father he’d loved so dearly was entirely in the wrong. After all, the victims hadn’t been innocents. And Devin Matteson, the man who’d lured his father into the killing game only to later give him up to the FBI, is probably the darkest of the lot. Those are troubling thoughts, and Frank tries to stay away from them. But when an old family friend calls to say…[more]

When the daughter of a powerful businessman dies as a result of her meth addiction, her father, strong-willed and brutal Buck Reinhardt, vows revenge. His target is the Red Boyz, a gang of Ojibwe youths accused of supplying the girl’s fatal drug dose. When the head of the Red Boyz and his wife are murdered in a way that suggests execution, the Ojibwe gang mobilizes, and the citizens of Tamarack County brace themselves for war, white against red.

Both sides look to Cork O’Connor, a man of mixed heritage, to uncover the truth behind the murders. A former sheriff, Cork has lived, fought, and nearly died to keep the small-town streets and his family safe from harm. He knows that violence is never a virtue, but he believes that it’s sometimes a necessary response to the evil that men do. Racing to find answers before the bloodshed spreads, Cork himself becomes involved in the darkest of deeds. As the unspeakable unfolds in the remote and beautiful…[more]

Still suffering the physical and emotional consequences of going up against the Chicago Outfit, PI Ray Dudgeon needs an easy gig. A routine investigation of an open-and-shut case sounds perfect. The job is a loser, but the pay is good, and maybe Ray will bring some peace to a grieving father who yearns to learn the truth about the daughter he never really knew.

But what begins as routine soon spirals out of control. The victim was not simply a quiet, shy, unassuming single woman whose luck ran out. She lived a double life, working in the shadowy realm of covert intelligence. In a world built on secrets and lies, she fought bravely for truth—and gave her life in the fight.

Suddenly, Ray finds himself caught in a war between private contractors and the darkest sectors of our own government—a war that stretches from the closed-door hearings of Congress to the frontlines of Iraq.
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